Heroica RPG - Quest Masters' Lounge

[Lind Whisperer]

The rest of my analysis, coming at you live!

Here's a bit of a blooper reel for you: Vorpalis's old design.

Did anyone else look at this and immediately think Rosario Vorpalis?

Loot:

I thought I struck a good balance overall, but pretty much everything worthwhile was dumped on you at the end. Everything else was basically gold or consumables, with 3 weapon and 2 artifact drops, minus the Vorpalis stuff.

For me, at least, it was a good object lesson on the value of gold+consumables. They're handy things. And it definitely does make the loot drops feel more valuable.

Lind: ...

Basically, yes, yep, agreed, and will do in future.

I need to see about typing up my extended thoughts some other time, but I can sum them up by saying it was an excellent quest - quite literally the best I've been on. I loved your hosting style, and I thought the depth of the story and characters maintained a good balance of keeping the plot going while still giving the players freedom to make their own choices.

Many thanks for having me, and I really hope to quest under you again someday!

Edited August 15, 2015 by Lind Whisperer

[Endgame]

The whole Charon side story was a little confusing, but I suppose you'll expand on that in future quests. I like to think that Immortalis is as prophetic as you make him out to be, but not a god. A, because Sandy has forbidden embodiment of gods in this game and B because the question of "is our fate really in our own hands?" is not answered. Be careful of how you characterize Immortalis, both in the quest and beyond the fourth wall.

Immortalis is not a god, by any stretch imagination. Gonna spill a bit of backstory here: his power of prophecy was the very first one he got, he was a normal dragon otherwise. He very quickly realized that KNOWING that terrible things would happen and NOT having the power to stop them was a very bad feeling, so he "hit the gym", so to speak. Over time, he's acquired his powers to become what he is now.

Did anyone else look at this and immediately think Rosario Vorpalis?

I have no idea what that is, but his look was initially inspired by a cross of Fatalis and Abyssal Lagiacrus.

[Lind Whisperer]

I have no idea what that is, but his look was initially inspired by a cross of Fatalis and Abyssal Lagiacrus.

It was your own quest... *looks up quest spelling* Change that to Rosalia Vorpalis.

Well, I guess it was definitely just me that thought Rosario Vorpalis.

[Endgame]

It was your own quest... *looks up quest spelling* Change that to Rosalia Vorpalis.

Well, I guess it was definitely just me that thought Rosario Vorpalis.

Thanks for dredging up memories of that irritating way I typed up all of Isaac's lines.

[Asphalt]

And the way read all of them.

[Lind Whisperer]

Question about reworking a rejected quest from the past.

Would it be alright if I tried tinkering with this idea that Cap'n John Paul posted? It was initially rejected for not being accurate to the time era. I would PM him to ask his permission, but he hasn't been online since March...

Before I pitch anything, I would like to get some feedback on this idea:

Quest Title: Black Tuesday

Assignment: The 6 major houses of Eubric have announced an Initial Public Offering. But the nasty Wolfgang are interfering with the stocks! They are suspected of using insider information to scam everyone. Help restore the houses to their value. -Whoever sens this quest.

Party Requirements: 4-6 heroes, any class.

Reward: I'm still thinking, perhaps all the value of all the houses in the end? Just lots of gold.

Basically, each "day" the heroes could invest in stocks, and the values will be revealed in a chart like this:

__|__|__|__|__|__|__

__|__|__|__|__|__|__

__|__|__|__|__|__|__

__|__|__|__|__|__|__

(there still will be battles and puzzles.)

I don't want to to reveal too much, but is this something that players wold have fun with?

Obviously setting it in Eubric would not work, and it'd need some major adaptations to be accurate to the time period but something like #130 and #137, where the players can explore a city.

Instead of a stock exchange, I was thinking something along the lines of a market, with commodity prices rising and falling(with the possibility of the heroes helping/hurting prices, through sabotage, "cleaning up the place," etc.). The quest plot is...well, like #137/#130, but with a couple of different merchant houses/guilds, all wanting to profit the most. The quest reward would be a combination of a base reward that all of the merchants chipped in to hire Heroes to clean up the corruption, and in addition to that, whatever house/guild the heroes decided to help/caused to make the most money, would give them a special additional reward, themed to that house/guild.

Edited August 15, 2015 by Lind Whisperer

[Waterbrick Down]

Alrighty, so 138. First off, you pulled of a fine quest Endgame, not your best maybe but I like the direction your heading with these quests a little bit more than your previous arcs, they're a little more relatible. I'm going to tackle this similar to JimB, please note any criticisms are meant to advance your own skills as well as the richness of the game.

Self Criticisms:

-Some story bits/transitions were definitely wonky - this is, unfortunately, a bad byproduct of clawing through 40 pages in about as many days. The part with Vorpalis in the Cathedral was a wonky, mostly because I planned on the entire party going in at once, and not just Lind. Granted, it segued into one of my favorite bits of the quest (Eschaton), but it still doesn't excuse how disjointed that bit was. Also very weird was the party reuniting in Mermont. The Pm party stepped out of a crematorium, the Thread party were escorting Eloen and Rydel , they bumped into each other, Gabriel railroaded you, and suddenly you were in a safe house? My italics narration kind of tried to mend a few of those issues, but I would forgive any player for not reading it. Ultimately, it would've been best to just slow down and let it progress naturally.

When we were plowing through the quest at the rate we did, some of the timing is understandable. Granted there were bits like the movement to the safe house and the whole segment with Sputnik that needed to be slowed down as they simply became "check a box off a list and move on". At those points, it's best to have the NPC's question the PC's, don't just spout information or naturally trust them, make us use our job traits. Once you do that it becomes more of a question of how do I get a person to do what I want as opposed to expecting them to do what I want. Concerning your narrations and it might be more of a personal preference, I found to be quite jarring and somewhat insulting. For example:

Sandman's voice, despite the urgency of the situation and the possible life that hung in the balance, still contained almost no traces of emotion. What was wrong with this man...? Pragmatism is one thing, but the hollowness of this man is another thing entirely...

Karie soon finds a glass of strong ale in front of her. Next to her glass is the Sandman's helmet, sitting vacant at the bar. The man was currently preoccupied organizing his equipment - Karie could inspect the helmet if she liked.

Karie shuffles across the room and leaves a glass of wine on one of the beds, keeping one for herself...

"Already poured yourself two, huh?"

Gabriel tries to drink more of his Moonball, but fails...

"...Have I been acting different lately?"

Since I forgot to respond to this point earlier Lind finds a few empty cans that could be used as cups.

"You're right about that."

Gabriel nervously raps his fingers on the makeshift cup.

"Doctors always said that it might take only one miracle drug to get things wired right up here," Gabriel says, tapping his temple with his knuckles. "Who would've thought that hallucinogenic, explosive fog could do it.

But that only confirms it. I have been acting different, haven't I?"

Gabriel looks at Jinnipher, his face as deadpan as ever but his voice with a very slight inflection - for Gabriel, though, that was unheard of.

"In a way, I did. I prefer not to get directly involved. My own power brings more destruction than I would like it to." The dragon sends down a blitz of blue lightning behind the party with a single gesture... was he the source of the errant lightning?

As PC's it's our job to be as attentive or as oblivious to the actions and happenings around our characters as we wish, by essentially telling us that we should do something or feel/think a certain way about something is essentially what we discourage PC's from doing in their interactions with other PC's, so it shouldn't be really encouraged by QM's. Ultimately I feel it does a disservice to the PC's as well as the development of the NPC's.

-Some choices were uninformed. I stand by the first decision of whether or not you'd get yourself fogged to go to whoever was crying for help - Sandman basically said it was a fool's errand, and I think some choices need to have consequences. Fair warning was given. A really pointless choice was whether you pass through Algon or the Forest, since you were uninformed about what was in each. If you went to Algon, you would've fought the rest of the Zodiac - along with its leaders, the twins Gemini. That should've been established, as should of the bounty hunters in the forest. There was subtle hints (Zodiac attack the defenseless, and Algon would be easy pickings... the last group had a bounty put on them) but still not enough.

In full agreement here, the fog was something I wished you had played with more, giving us puffy was too easy. You had us scared of the fog at the beginning of the quest because of its effects but by the end, most of us had completely forgotten or ignored its importance. The choice between the Forest and Algon wasn't pointless because we were uninformed, but because it really didn't make a difference in how the story ended. One choice you didn't include was whether or not to go with Charon, honestly it felt like we were being forced to go down that route simply to allow you to expand upon a plot point that really didn't have much to do with us or have any real effect on the outcome of the story, we were essentially just humoring you so you could foreshadow some stuff.

-Lots of NPCs, none of them really stood out save for a handful. I liked Gabriel, I liked Charon, I liked Vorpalis, I liked Immortalis, I liked Faust, the Zodaic was fun conceptually I think, Eloen and Rydel served the purpose they needed to (albeit they really only talked to one character ), Melody and Bulk were decent foils... Also, even though he was only there for a bit, I liked Morrison the mortician, for no other reason that I think he portrayed the toll Vorpalis's rule took on people well. The rest might as well had been cardboard cut-outs. Especially glaring for Sputnik and Merlay, because they were talked up. Aeolus was killed pretty quick before he could be characterized - same with Marlow. I guess 6-7 NPCs is enough to carry a month and a half of questing, but when you throw out so many, the ratio of good characters to bad/bland was poor.

Bulk and Melody were probably the only PC's I wanted to know more about, the rest I really didn't have any reason to care about. They weren't forcing Skrall to get their help, they were essentially telling the Party what they needed to know or giving them the equipment they needed to advance the story. Not to say that that is a wrong approach, but it often leads to the situation we saw.

-Gabriel was meant to be a foil to Masson, as they had similar mental illnesses and pasts, but they ended up pretty differently. This was kinda defeated when Gabriel started sounding like Masson. Granted, he was buzzed at the time, and I think it was only bad in the safe house, but he was way too close to being like Mr. Purple during that time. I think I distinguished them well enough later on, though. Gabriel has no higher cause/drive to have one, is pretty much morally bankrupt, and is not afraid of embracing more bodily pleasures.

Ah Gabriel, I liked him as long as he wasn't talking about how he was different or how he was changing. See my earlier quotes from him above. First rule of PC character development, don't talk about your development, show us your development. The points where he either asked us whether he was different or you as a narrator told us he was different were too much to make him believable. You've gotten something good there as an NPC and I think you made him unique enough from Mason, but show us how he grows and how characters have effects on him. Show us he's in love with Jinnipher, don't tell us. Zepher does a good job with this, it takes multiple quests and a lot of time, but you can see how his NPC's change over long arcs and it's a thing of beauty.

-Immortalis's vision about the international conflict may have come out of left field, but I think it works better that way. Immortalis knew that would happen before anyone else involved even had an inkling. There was deliberately very little clues to that possibility, because I wanted to show how prophetic Immortalis was.

The whole issue with prophets who are powerful enough to do something about their visions but don't do anything, is that they're boring. We've seen it before, it's a trope that's been beaten to death ad hominem, same with Charon and an all powerful group or force that works to make sure things "happen" like they're supposed to "happen". To do these tropes and groups well it unfortunately takes a lot of investment and collaboration and this goes back to my earlier criticism. You have to show us how this "group" or "force" impacted prior events, you can't just tell us. Telling us is really a cop out and some times an insult to other's work, especially when you're discussing events that other QM's planned and ran and did so with no intention of them ever having any connection to this "group"/"thing" that you've now said is a reality. If you say the war in Baltarok was authored by a "group" or overseen by some "force" than I as a QM am now obligated to somehow acknowledge this fact even though I never intended such a thing, because I want to be a nice chap and make things connected and making sense. Something to be careful with in future quests.

Vorpalis

Vorpalis was the first overtly villainous character I've played since The Regret. Lethauros opposed the heroes, sure, but his actions weren't really villainous - he didn't ravage the forest for anything other than food. The Regret monologued too much, and his reasons were too implausible, and his goal of extermination was pretty much out of reach.

I think Vorpalis was more effective. Vorpalis didn't really monologue - he did twice. Once, during a public speech, which makes sense. And second when he was delirious from pain and about to die. He was pretty much no nonsense otherwise, and I designed him to be like that. He didn't really toy around. Lind jumped in and started speaking without getting a feel for the situation, gave him the information he was trying to get... Boom, Marlow dead. There was no reason for him not to kill Marlow at that point. After that, he immediately sets to chasing down and killing the heroes. When that fails because of Charon (if you rejected his offer, Vorpalis would have caught you, and it would've been a hopeless boss fight.) When they elude him, he orders a bounty, and tracks down Faust. Come the execution, he calls out the disguises, and immediately jumps in the fray to end the heroes. When he sees too many of his followers die, he can't stand the bloodshed, and challenges them to a duel in an isolated location.

Vorpalis was good and I think justified. One thing that unfortunately maybe wasn't clear was his actual deeds and is something that I as a player and Skrall as a character found hard to grasp. Did he actually wantonly destroy his own country or were his actions only limited to the followers of Faust, we never got good clarification on that and I think it's ultimately what led to Skrall's decision to almost side with Vorpalis. As Skrall saw it, if the Party had been present the day Faust had betrayed Vorpalis, there would have been no question of Faust's wickedness, but because of the muddled understanding of Vorpalis's motives and extent of actual destruction, the decision was that much harder. The one thing that struck me wrong, was when Vorpalis encouraged Skrall to stand with his group and deny his ideals, it felt more like Endgame was telling Skrall to join his party than the Dragon. Vorpalis was a conqueror not a masochist like his brother, his stupidity in the offer seemed out of character.

The rest of my analysis, coming at you live!

Here's a bit of a blooper reel for you: Vorpalis's old design.

Yuck.

The "finalized" Vorpalis shown at the end of 134 is also not the real final one, as well. In that shot, he has a tan underbelly and purple claws.

Much better with the darker colors than rather than the green claws. I'm still not thrilled with LDD, but it's a preference I'm willing to overlook.

Battles:

Battles 1 and 2 were pretty easy by design. There were originally going to be four Octoraiders, but Skrall's usage of the lightning bomb completed removed one of them from battle. Battle 3 went by quickly, but it was the first battle where anyone had a risk of getting knocked out/got close to it. Battle four got pretty dire near the end, but I failed to take into account how strong Warlen was, so it ended a bit sooner than expected.

The Vorpalis battle was a huge difficulty spike. This was by design. Over the course of the battle, he knocked out half of the party members - he did, after all, coquer much of the continent for the Kingdom of Mercution. If Skrall didn't pop the Fenghuang Incense, I imagine things would've gone poorly.

You did great on the battles as always and I appreciated that you made Jinnipher a viable addition to the party with the weaknesses and such. I didn't feel there was too much of a spike with the Vorpalis battle, we still had quite a bit of resources left up our sleeve and I new once Skrall got a marking of the favored that he'd clean up pretty quickly so I was glad it didn't happen to soon.

Loot:

I thought I struck a good balance overall, but pretty much everything worthwhile was dumped on you at the end. Everything else was basically gold or consumables, with 3 weapon and 2 artifact drops, minus the Vorpalis stuff.

Also, Jinnipher running around with The Beheader. Yikes.

Overall, a good haul, nothing in particular was super useful to Skrall, but then again he's got a pretty niche build to begin with. I'm with JimB in that more consumables as opposed to other things, or gold, never hurts.

Player analysis of my own:

QM (Endgame): In summary, a good quest, as always great battles and for the most part a good plot. You've got a bit of work to do with your NPC's and getting your PC's to feel something without telling them, but overall you're definitely progressing with each and every quest.

Jinnipher (JimB): I thoroughly enjoy Jinnipher as a player (most of the time, the times I don't are when I can't seperate Skrall's feelings for her) and thoroughly hated her as Skrall. Not in an angry way, but in a frustrated way which I think is good. Jinnipher has pride to equal Nerwen's but it comes out in a very violent way as opposed to Nerwen's haughtiness that's so subtle you'll miss it if your PC's IQ is too low. For a first quest she did somewhat dominate the stage in terms of story, maybe understandably, but it never felt like you forced it that way JimB. I think you're off to a fine start with her and hope Skrall will have the opportunity to work together towards a common goal at some point.

Karie (Kintober): Second time questing with you and you were great as ever. I've liked how Karie has evolved over her time with Heroica, not in a boisterous way but in a slow and subtle manner. She's been more reflective which I think is something natural with all of the big changes going on in her life. She doesn't have the freedom to be as happy go lucky as she once was and it shows. Skrall really did feel that she was the only reasonable member of the Party and it saddened him that she didn't consider his point of view. I hope they'll have a chance to quest together again and patch things up. Fine job as always!

Warlen (The Chosen Minifigure): You'll have to forgive me as I missed the part where Warlen went from mage with a talking skull to mystic knight with a blood lust, so it may have made interacting with Warlen a little difficult as I wasn't sure what his "shtick" was. Missed the bit at the end with Warlen having had a prior encounter with Vorpalis before, not sure if that's something canon or something you decided to tag on. If the former, then good for you, if the latter, then be careful about putting too much emphasis on it. It looks great for Warlen, but it can sometime feel forced or coming out of left-field for the rest of us. Definitely expand upon this inner turmoil thing you've got going, but be careful not to become a moping character who only talks about his inner turmoil but never does anything about it. I'd be happy to go on more quests with you and see where you take Warlen.

Lind (Lind Whisperer): I'll be honest and say I had my doubts on how Skrall would interact with Lind, part of me thought Skrall would be the one shooting him and not the one having to protect him from the rest of the party. You've already gotten some pretty good advice from the rest of the group. Don't worry about replying to every post and be careful not to have Lind come across as a know-it-all even with "munchkin" knowledge. As others have said, you've got a good kernel to work off of, don't waste it being the guy with a solution or answer for everything.

Skrall (WBD): I'll admit, the bits of the end were some of the hardest to play. I really wanted to not go against the party, to do the easy thing and just kill Vorpalis like Skrall's build was designed to do, but something in Vorpalis's story just wouldn't let me let Skrall do that. He isn't a heartless killer, or an overly emotional fighter, he tries not to let the present cloud his judgement of the past, he's tired and frustrated with the way the world is. I'm almost comfortable enough with Skrall that I can feel how much the slights and the judgments against him hurt him and its a weird place to be able to sympathize with your character to that degree. Now if I could only figure out a way to advance him mechanically, he's been stuck with practically the same build since Quest 31.

Overall, this was a fun quest to go on, so good job to the rest of you players and to Endgame.

Edited August 16, 2015 by Waterbrick Down

[KotZ]

Question about reworking a rejected quest from the past.

Would it be alright if I tried tinkering with this idea that Cap'n John Paul posted? It was initially rejected for not being accurate to the time era. I would PM him to ask his permission, but he hasn't been online since March...

Obviously setting it in Eubric would not work, and it'd need some major adaptations to be accurate to the time period but something like #130 and #137, where the players can explore a city.

Instead of a stock exchange, I was thinking something along the lines of a market, with commodity prices rising and falling(with the possibility of the heroes helping/hurting prices, through sabotage, "cleaning up the place," etc.). The quest plot is...well, like #137/#130, but with a couple of different merchant houses/guilds, all wanting to profit the most. The quest reward would be a combination of a base reward that all of the merchants chipped in to hire Heroes to clean up the corruption, and in addition to that, whatever house/guild the heroes decided to help/caused to make the most money, would give them a special additional reward, themed to that house/guild.

I could ask him for you.

[Endgame]

Agreed on pretty much everything, but some other notes:

In full agreement here, the fog was something I wished you had played with more, giving us puffy was too easy. You had us scared of the fog at the beginning of the quest because of its effects but by the end, most of us had completely forgotten or ignored its importance. The choice between the Forest and Algon wasn't pointless because we were uninformed, but because it really didn't make a difference in how the story ended. One choice you didn't include was whether or not to go with Charon, honestly it felt like we were being forced to go down that route simply to allow you to expand upon a plot point that really didn't have much to do with us or have any real effect on the outcome of the story, we were essentially just humoring you so you could foreshadow some stuff.

The choice between the Forest and Algon actually did have plot relevance, but this loops back to my own self criticsim of it being an uninformed decision. Without your Melody and Bulk disguises, Aeolus would've eventually become impatient and nabbed Eloen and Rydel Buchaire himself, placing them on execution during the fourth battle. Of course, I should've established 4 things back at Yukumo

A) You had a bounty on your heads

B) Bounty hunters were Melody and Bulk

C) Algon was being raided by the Zodiac

D) You'd need disguises to slip into Mermont

Also, the quest would've gone on without going with Charon, but I made a point of mentiong that Charon was a fallen archangel before you went with him. Considering the satanic connotations that has, that was meant to be the counterweight to the promise of safe travel. I should've made it more clear that you had a choice, however.

The one thing that struck me wrong, was when Vorpalis encouraged Skrall to stand with his group and deny his ideals, it felt more like Endgame was telling Skrall to join his party than the Dragon. Vorpalis was a conqueror not a masochist like his brother, his stupidity in the offer seemed out of character.

Vorpalis does not take nicely to poor leadership. He believes that leaders have to make choices, but they also have a responsbility to their people. If Karie was party leader and not Skrall, he would've told Skrall to run. But he was not about to let a leader abandon their people, even if there was only 5 of them. Going off of this, if Faust wasn't misgoverning Moone (there was the whole "moon elves = aristocracy" problem, he essentially forced cities to rely on Mermont, taxation was an issue but I realize it may have never been brought up, all built on a lie by a traitor, etc.) Vorpalis may have left it alone. But Faust's betrayal and his poor ruling of Moone, plus how he retroactively tried to ruin Lethauros's image, pushed Vorpalis to do what he did.

I'll be taking all of that criticism to heart as I draft up the finale of the Dragon trilogy, so thank you very much for it.

A few unanswered questions from 138, though:

1) Why were the errant bolts of lightning sent down?

2) Was Lind right to question whether or not those texts the Fanatic was spewing actually related to Vorpalis?

[Lind Whisperer]

I could ask him for you.

Could you - IRL, I'm assuming? That'd be great, thanks!

[KotZ]

Could you - IRL, I'm assuming? That'd be great, thanks!

Yeah, I'll shoot him a text and see what he says. May have to jog his memory a little but he'll probably figure out what's going on.

[Lind Whisperer]

Yeah, I'll shoot him a text and see what he says. May have to jog his memory a little but he'll probably figure out what's going on.

Thanks!

[KotZ]

Thanks!

He said go for it.

In other news he told me to tell everyone he may be returning to EB and Heroica soon.

[Palathadric]

Yay! Always good to have returnees!

[Lind Whisperer]

He said go for it.

Awesome.

Yay! Always good to have returnees!

Agreed!

[Zepher]

Haven't had much of a chance to comment on quests that aren't my own recently, but...

129 (yes, know I'm at least a month late to that game): superb. Great read. Wonderful characters as always, and the story worked together extremely well. There were some parts that felt a little tacked on, like others have said, simply because they didn't have an agenda that seemed served or not served by the end (the Crimson Crown for sure could have been taken out and the quest would have been the same, which is never the way you want to feel with story-telling). But everything else... fantastic. And the lead up to Jules' death... I really thought they would save him in the nick of time, and they were so far off, and it was devastating and real and a great character death. The flashes allowed us to get to know Melville a little bit more too, which was good, because as a big bad he seemed to come out of left field a little. Reading the PMs made that better, for me.

138 - Great quest. I agree it could have benefitted from a slower pace. I know it's a little silly to say, but I purposely try to not respond too swiftly to my quests. Say person A responds, I respond, person A responds, I respond... now person A is kind of impatient to move onto the next thing, but Person B is still hoping to engage in the first thing. Again, like getting from point A to point B, it might seem silly to make them stop at Point C in-between, because there's nothing really to do in point C, but it will help them orient themselves. But, as far as choice and characters bouncing off each other, awesome quest. I really loved Vorpalis, and I sort of wish he hadn't been so out-right antagonistic, I thought he had a chance at being King, and wish that had been a more legitimate choice because it would have been a cool switch in the game dynamic (moon elves fugitives in Eubric!!!!) but it wasn't to be. Skrall was awesome in the end there. I've been a long time fan, obviously, but it's my favorite things when the most virtuosic of a character's traits make him into the villain a bit. Even Skrall's two different traits - loyalty to the party and his sense of real right and wrong... they came into conflict within himself. It was a great intro to Jinnipher too.

[Kintobor]

Quest 138

Alright, I'm in a little late, so I'll keep it quick since just about everything I wanted to say has been said. It was a good, solid quest with a few noticeable hiccups. I think everything's been said except for the idea behind the fog: great idea, but it should've been implemented more. I freaked out as a player getting to see the Apprentice again after three years, despite knowing he wasn't real, since it was a character I still love for how much of a despicable creep he was, and it was a really intriguing way of bringing back characters players had no desire of seeing again due to fear or anger. I wish it was handled a little bit better though, and I wish it also affected the other PCs. What was Jinnipher's anyways? I figured it was the Nephilim, but I could be wrong.

Battles were awesome, but coming from you that's not saying much. Especially Vorpalis, it was a tough fight, but one that was quick and to the point. There's nothing I'm less fond of than a fight that drags on, and Vorpalis was both fun and challenging, and paced well.

Also, you did Vorpalis justice as a dragon, so kudos for not falling into the trap I find a lot of dragon characters in RPGs fall into (either they're not threatening/too weak, or they don't provide an interesting conversation/encounter for the party. There's a difference between a wyvern and a dragon people! )

Other than that, I'm glad I went on the quest, and as much as I doubt I'm going on the finale, I had a blast. Thanks, Endgame!

[Lind Whisperer]

Quest 138

...I freaked out as a player getting to see the Apprentice again after three years, despite knowing he wasn't real, since it was a character I still love for how much of a despicable creep he was, and it was a really intriguing way of bringing back characters players had no desire of seeing again due to fear or anger. I wish it was handled a little bit better though, and I wish it also affected the other PCs. What was Jinnipher's anyways? I figured it was the Nephilim, but I could be wrong.

Out of curiosity, what would Lind have seen if he'd gone into the fog as well? Edited August 17, 2015 by Lind Whisperer

[Endgame]

Thanks for the thoughts, Zeph! They could've sided with Vorpalis, but I think the fact that he planned to kill the people in the safehouse is what sealed his fate.

Dammit, no, that would've been cool idea for her to see Lucifuge! Jinnipher saw her parents dangling from a tree by their necks, with bags over their heads - Vorpalis came, threatened Moone Elf genocide, and "knocked" Jiinnipher to her feet, thus why she woke up in the mud.

Out of curiosity, what would Lind have seen if he'd gone into the fog as well?

I don't know, it was kind of improv for me. Looking back, it would've been his "hometown" (subtarranean forest, i think you said?) on fire with the Dodekube being proven false.

Edited August 17, 2015 by Endgame

[Waterbrick Down]

Thanks for the thoughts, Zeph! They could've sided with Vorpalis, but I think the fact that he planned to kill the people in the safehouse is what sealed his fate.

I think it was more the "You get put on a boat" and the quest fails until Endgame can find heroes who are willing to kill his dragon.

[Endgame]

I think it was more the "You get put on a boat" and the quest fails until Endgame can find heroes who are willing to kill his dragon.

No, it would've affected the final quest in the trilogy. You're aright about the "quest failed" though, but that makes logical sense. Your job was to kill Vorpalis, not to get deported.

As one final supplementary picture...

The Ancestral Trio, with a minifigure for scale.

Edited August 17, 2015 by Endgame

[Asphalt]

L, must have gotten his looks from his mamma.

[Endgame]

L, must have gotten his looks from his mamma.

If you look at the spikes emerging from his wings, and the fact that his tail/claws slowly fade to gray compared to his main body's white, the implication is is that he's molting to be like Vorpalis.

But yeah, he probably inherited the two-horn thing from his mother, whoever she is.

[JimBee]

The Ancestral Trio, with a minifigure for scale.

Little do we know the minifigure foreshadows Endgame's next story arch. The main villain: The Red One, Olegain Oppressor of Time and Space and Other Things.

[Endgame]

Little do we know the minifigure foreshadows Endgame's next story arch. The main villain: The Red One, Olegain Oppressor of Time and Space and Other Things.

Who I build out of physical bricks and photoshop into my digital sets, to show his godly providence?

I've always wanted to build one set physical as a joke, and randomly switch it out with its digital equivalent, over and over...

Edited August 17, 2015 by Endgame